


The Easy Way

by scioscribe



Category: Wiseguy
Genre: Aftermath, Drug Withdrawal, Escapee From Id Pro Quo, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, forced drug addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: After mobsters attempt to interrogate Frank by forcibly injecting him with heroin, Vinnie helps him through withdrawal.
Relationships: Frank McPike & Vinnie Terranova
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	The Easy Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/gifts).



Frank had told and told Vinnie to move to the goddamn couch, but Vinnie wouldn’t: God forbid he not be right on hand to help out when Frank sweated straight through his pajamas again.

“I mean it,” Frank said. “It’d be better if one of us were getting some sleep, at least.”

“You’re allergic to being the one getting worried about.” Vinnie stripped Frank’s sodden T-shirt off him and tossed it in the laundry basket—a neat little hook shot that he turned back to see if Frank admired.

He was all out of admiration, though. He felt like he was out of everything—the last few days had scraped him down, all the way through the bottom of the barrel and down into the bedrock. He couldn’t remember a single damn thing he’d ever enjoyed. His mouth tasted like steel shavings and his whole body ached like every muscle had been stretched on its own individual rack. If he wasn’t sweating, he was shaking, his teeth chattering like cymbals.

And he couldn’t even sleep anymore without messing it all up.

Vinnie dabbed a cool, wet cloth against his chest. “Hey. It’s all right, Frank.” He curved one hand around the side of Frank’s head, flitting his fingers through hair that had to be just as sweat-soaked as everything else.

“You know, now that I’m on the other end of it, I can see how Jenny thought this was annoying. Platitude after platitude after platitude, and none of it makes one bit of difference to the _misery_ of it all.”

And now he was being an asshole to Vinnie, one of the only people Frank could think of who would ever have shown up to help him through this, who could deal with wet linens and bedside trash cans full of vomit and not even bat an eye. Of course, Vinnie, being Vinnie, probably thought all this was his fault somehow, which it wasn’t. Frank had been in this business years before Vinnie Terranova had ever come around, and when he’d kept his mouth shut in that damn basement, it had only technically been Vinnie he’d been protecting. He would have done his best not to talk even if his only guy had been Roger Lococco. Vinnie didn’t owe him any of this.

He didn’t even feel like a person right now. He might as well have been a scarecrow stuffed full of straw.

Vinnie got him a fresh shirt and changed the sheets while Frank just sat there, limp as cooked spaghetti, watching his best guy play Florence Nightingale for him.

He said, “I don’t know if I’d press the plunger or not, but if you stuck a syringe of heroin in my arm right now and did it for me, and I would honest-to-God be so grateful I’d cry.”

Vinnie nodded and sat back down in that tiny chair, looking like a linebacker sitting in one of those spinning teacups at Disney World. His hair looked greasy; Frank couldn’t remember the last time either of them had showered. It had just been Vinnie pulling him out of that hellhole and then day after day of this—gray nothingness, his head full of grit and fog.

Withdrawal was like being in a swimming pool and having to tread water for hours on end, sometimes even going under, drowning until he came up sputtering and choking—while the ladder was right there in front of him, solid and real and just waiting for him to grab it.

He hadn’t grabbed hold of the ladder when they had wanted him to, not when the price of that handhold would have been the name of every OCB agent on the books. Now, though—

Now it was harder.

Or it would have been, if he hadn’t had Vinnie to babysit him.

Frank said, “It’s a good thing you’re here to make sure I don’t do anything stupid.”

“I guess the shoe’s on the other foot for once.”

Frank couldn’t even manage a real chuckle; it just sounded like sandpaper rasping on sandpaper.

“You know what they told me?” he said. “They sat there, three wiseguys in cheap suits, and they smiled these big sharky smiles, and they said it wasn’t the easy way or the hard way. It was just the easy way. They’d pump me full of heroin, and once I got used to it, I’d roll over on my own mother to get the next dose. And nobody even had to bruise their knuckles on me.”

“Well, they didn’t know you, Frank. You’re not an easy way kind of guy.”

“Believe me, right now I’d take the easy way if I could find it.” He sighed and rolled over onto his back, feeling another wave of stomach cramps tensing up. He pressed his hands against his gut, trying to hold himself together.

“To tell you the truth,” Vinnie said softly, “I’m not really here to keep you from relapsing.”

“You just like sleeping in uncomfortable chairs.”

“Yeah, I feel like I’m sitting at a kindergartner’s desk. A _short_ kindergartner.” He played with the lamp cord, ticking it back and forth between his fingers. “What’s this even for, Frank?”

“Mostly I just put clothes on it,” Frank said. He closed his eyes. “On the nights when it feels like I can’t make it to the closet. But fine, I’ll bite. What’s the real reason, then, Vince? Don’t try to tell me it’s the pleasure of my company. Even I’m sick to death of myself.”

There was a trace of a smile in Vinnie’s voice. “Yeah, I think Eeyore’s perkier than you right now.” The chair creaked, and then Vinnie seemed to be right by him, smoothing out the sheets. “Nobody should have to do the hard way on his own. You’re there for me, and I’m here for you. Now go to sleep and stop worrying if I’m comfortable, all right? I’m comfortable. I’m eating you out of house and home and watching all your pay-per-view.” There was the brief brush of a kiss against Frank’s head. “So go to sleep.”

He guessed that was the turning point where he started coming out of it, because sure enough, he finally slept soundly.


End file.
